It takes less than five minutes talking with members of the Ceridian executive team to realize that they mean business. Whether it’s their passion for athletics, like participating in the Tough Mudder, or their passion for raising the bar in the HCM space, it’s crystal clear. They come to play and to win.
There is something appealing about a company that leads introductions by sharing personal information about the executive team. It certainly makes them approachable and you can see why clients like the culture they are creating and nurturing. It’s a highly competitive team, which leads to their significant goals for 2014 and beyond.
Strengthening the Payroll Offerings
Known in the industry for its strength in payroll and workforce management solutions, Ceridian is stepping up efforts in the international payroll arena. The company is now able to provide solutions in key areas such as:
- New hire onboarding forms and workflows
- Interfaces to the local in-country payroll processor
- Time and attendance and schedule compliance policies
- Absence management, including entitlements and time-off workflows
- Global reporting
- Consolidated reporting and business intelligence
- Foreign exchange conversion
- Local format
- Date, hour, numeric and currency formatting based on user culture
- 24 x 7 support operating out of Ceridian’s Glasgow and Mauritius centers
- Support in 15+ languages
For companies that have need for international payroll, these offerings are helping Ceridian grow beyond North American borders. Another appealing quality is the ability their solution gives customers to provide real-time payroll so that employees can see their estimated paycheck, including deductions, daily. Your CFO and finance team can also see overall company payroll in real-time and if you’re leading payroll, you’ll appreciate that this addresses a real pain point for CFOs. It also has the ability to track employees who work in multiple jurisdictions, even within a pay period, and it calculates taxes pro-rated based on the state in which the hours are worked.
Unique Growth in the HCM Space
In addition, with its 2012 acquisition of Dayforce, Ceridian is now moving full speed ahead on promoting a revolutionary spin on HCM solutions. Ceridian offers a zero-interface solution with one employee record and one user experience. This SaaS application not only brings greater efficiency in the processes, it reduces error rates since dual entry is not needed. This translates to a time savings for your payroll and HR teams.
With about 900 customers on the Dayforce platform, average customer size of 1,200 employees, Ceridian is demonstrating there is an interest in this delivery model. CEO David Ossip says 51% of customers buy three or more modules (typically payroll, benefits and time); 33% buy two or more modules (payroll and time); and 16% buy the payroll solution. Ceridian also provides solutions for performance management, benefits, business intelligence, tax filing and talent management.
Questions and Considerations
As with any new approach in the market, it’s not without concerns. Is Ceridian trying to do too much by tackling payroll and HCM solutions? There are other vendors in the space that are better known for HCM solutions and are trying to compete in the payroll arena. Time will tell who the winners are. The other issue is that Ceridian, still known primarily as a payroll brand, has significant marketing work ahead to spread the word on HCM and have customers evangelize about Ceridian’s HCM capabilities.
Ceridian will also have to work with its legacy BPO accounts to move them to the cloud. This could lead to backlash from existing customers who feel like the focus of the business is moving in a different direction, although Ceridian executives tell me they are not forcing the move to the cloud on existing customers.
Like any race, solid preparation and attention to detail will determine who the leaders in the industry become. Ceridian is certainly looking to be to the finish line first.
—Trish McFarlane, Vice President of Human Resource Practice and Principal Analyst, Brandon Hall Group
@TrishMcFarlane
